Stone McCarthy: "You Don't Get Three Months Of Negative Empire Survey Results Unless You Are In A Recession"

Forgive us while we take another quick and gratuitous look at today's disastrous Empire Index, but we wanted to bring a very important point highlighted by Stone McCarthy: "You usually don't get three straight months of negative results unless you are in a recession (Note: NY Fed historical data only started in July 2001)." SMRA continues: "If that's not bad enough for you, the forward-looking new orders index fell to -7.8 in August, after posting -5.5 in July and -3.6 in June. Not only is the latest reading a new low in the recent string of negative results, it's also the third straight month of contraction." In other words when the NBER finally sits down to look at the disaster that the US economy has been over the past several years, the start of the next re-recession will likely be given as June 2011, oddly enough in a year when every sell side bank predicted that the economy would grow by at least 3.5% by Q4. As for what to expect next, look for the Philly Fed to be the next major leading indicator disappointment, which based on the NY Fed result, will miss Wall Street expectations of a +2.0% increase yet once gain, and which SMRA believes will drop from 3.2 in July to -3.4 in August.

Is that where The Bernank claims that the anal lube he's peddling is NOT inflating in price fast enough just before the Central Banksters whip it out and absolutely sodomize Americans & the World's Citizenry?

The Bernank is a true master in the dark art of currency debasement.

I do hope that they add his face to Mount Rushmoore (he's not an American President, but let us make an exception). Tourists could even flock there if they did add his likeness, and they could toss hundred dollar FRNs off his face as they make wishes for more purchasing power.

This is the new government propaganda of timing statistics to perpetually make things look just bad enough to keep a lid on the populace while corporate profits soar. The unbelievers of American capitalism will be punished in the marketplace while the true believers, who's religious fervor teaches lies told in the name of good are divine, go forth an prosper.

The lowest gas price in America today is in Yuma, Arizona, a city in the middle of the desert with the closet refinery in over-regulated California.

The most expense gas on the mainland is in Chicago.

Even the price of gas is secretly manipulated to boost lagging local economies and temper overheated ones as the greatest boon to the technological efficiency explosion is to regulate human activity.

wtf is holding the markets up right now? skynet trading software, hopeium and eurobond purchases aside, how are they able to levitate through this and another inevitable GDP downgrade? I realize the central planners run a good game, but it's gotten to the point where there is nothing left of the economy for the PTB's to centrally plan...

The levitation is via correlators. The computers watch the Euro as the heaviest weighted contributor to the corporate profit predictor.

Why? Because dollar denominated earnings result from Euro denominated sales. Europeans buy US multinational company goods and pay Euros for them. With a Euro surge vs the USD, it looks like big earnings.

At the risk of being derided for mentioning EWP, this little rally is true to form. There will be more volatility, but the trend is down. This is a small fourth wave, to be followed by another wave down, to be followed by another fervent rally, to be followed by a devastating sell-off. Now that the market has finally reversed on a large scale, the wave pattern should take on a more predictable form.

Anyone else here curious just when this bitch is going to blow sky high? I am sick to death of this gray area, not knowing what the hell is coming down the pipe. I know it's going to get ugly, but where I live(midwest-corn belt) things never got bad during the '08 crash, in fact stuff pretty much went on as normal, and continue to do so. Housing never really dipped here, and new homes continue to go up, along with other business and farm related structures. Here I sit wondering if I am nuts for looking at moving to another home, thinking the bottom will fall out any day now.

I realize current conditons are fragile at best, and when someone farts the markets react. That said, does anyone here know if there is any kind of a past yardstick that tells us if some areas will fare better than others, should things REALLY crap? My wife thinks I am a nutjob for having a paltry three month supply of food and can't seem to grasp the fact that we are doomed at some point.

This is a lagging indicator. Statistically this indicator is not only not meeting the a somewhat arbitrary control limit, but is nosediving. It's the constant downward trend that should alarm more than anything else.

Just accept the fact that it is going to blow up and plan accordingly. Long ago I gave up any hope of knowing exactly when or what event would trigger the collapse. It is a comfort to just accept what will be and watch the show.

i realize that i'm nuts, but i cannot escape the conclusion that sentiment seems to drive fundamentals...i also realize that's a big and bold statement, so someone please shut it down. it seems counterintuitive and cart-before-the-horsish; even so, i guess it comports nicely with the bathos of financial markets.

Must be why the market is up 180 -- another recession has clearly been priced in - and there is nowhere to go but up from here. The market - being a foward looking guage of economic activity - is just pricing in the soon to come recovery.

This whole game will end, trust me. We are in a depression (a depression is a real bad recession), period. They have known this but can't say the words, because if they say it's a depression then people will be looking for individuals to blame and they can't have that.